I started as a stage magician in my youth, that turned into doing special effects for stage and then into professionally making props for Halloween industry for amusement parks and home haunters who had more money than they had time to make things (like Dentists).
My web based business for Halloween animated props was the first off its kind on the internet in the 90s. There were older and bigger "Dark Ride" focused special effects companies in the world but they shunned the internet in the beginning so I beat them to it. THEN when they finally got on the net I undercut them by a LOT because they used heavy steel and high pressure air (100 to 200psi) needed heavy duty control values with microcomputers. Where as my products used aluminum (75% the strength and 25% the weight), low pressure (20psi) and RELAY LOGIC instead of computers.
However They say when you make your hobby your job you have neither...
After about 8 years of living the dream then China started making animated products similar (copies really) to my designs and undercut MY business.
Here is a snap shot of my OLD (do not laugh, this was way in the beginning of web design and I used Notepad to make it with MS front page to process the HTML) web page on the "wayback machine":
http://web.archive.org/web/20071012113211/http://spookyfx.com/boo1.html
These days it is now back to being a Hobby:
When I was younger I was heavy into Medieval Martial Arts (I was smaller than most of my peers but fiercely dedicated and earned the highest rank they awarded in the organization. Got nicknamed "Giant Slayer"):
And when I got too old and broken I applied my knowledge to Game Combat Mechanics:
I got almost all my ideas for game combat done in Oblivion mods. But it is very hard these days in new games as I am a far better swordsman than a programmer. Oblivion will go down as the easiest game in History to mod so completely until there are games with TRUE AI that help mod makers write programs (like you see they do for Holodeck "game" programs in Star Trek).
I am now trying to work up the energy to lean 3D printing and CNC but the packages with the equipment have sat unopened in my shop for several years now, I think this dog got too old to learn any new tricks.